Cooky feeding tower



March 12, 1940. F. c. WERNER I COOKY FEEDING TOWER Filed Jan. 28, 1939 INETR.

F RANK CHARLES WERNER 1 ATTORNEYv Patented Mar. 12, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Claims My invention relates generally to cooky inachinery and more particularly to a cooky feeding tower therefon. I I] It is desirable, during the making of goods of 5 this kind, to feed baked cookies or wafers or the like to a conveyor in conjunction with which a further operation is to be performed and. one

nprevious method of doing this is to house'the cookies to form vertical stacks, the lowermost cooky being slid therefrom as required.

One object of my present invention lies in my slanting construction, this causing ,the s'upply of cookies to beso positioned as to' have their weight carried largely by the trough or duct. in which they rest rather than by the cookies therebelow. It is to be understood that should the cookies be stacked vertically that the bottom cooky would necessarily carryall oftheweight of the entire stack of cookies thereabove and that each cooky would, in its turn, passv through this condition and furthermore, while inthis state of compression, would be subjected to the sliding removal action. The sliding removal causes a rubbing and shearing action which is especially objectionable in the case of intricate and delicate designs as it renders them less distinct and somewhat blurred even though the cookies are in a more or less hardened state.

Hand in hand with the aforesaid advantage comes a second advantage, namely, the fact that a large supply of cookies may be kept in the feeding device, thus permitting the persons feeding the same to have longer rest periods between the intermittent feedings. Of. course, the rest periods'are of only a minuteor less duration but nevertheless the efficiency of the worker is increased. I Another advantage is that'the supply of cookies in the feeding reservoir is visible from a large angle and consequently the probability of having any of the feeding lines running dry is materially lessened. This lack of cookies, in the case of making sandwich cookies, would cause the confection to be deposited upon the carrying means which means is usually a belt.

Yet another advantage, and one of the main ones, is the ease of observing broken or defective danger of dropping a good cooky or two, but, contrariwise, the entire bunch can be laid into feeding position, and then the defective cooky or cookies be easily seen and quickly and expediently. removed. Still another feature is the ease of placing the bunch of cookies into the machine. They do not need to be more or less singly dropped, as in the case of a" vertical chute, but can simply be laid as a unit upon their several sides, the ends of the same being grasped and in compression as they are lifted.

The nature and advantages of the invention willbe better understood when the following de- 7 tailed description is read in connection with the accompanying drawing, the invention residing in the construction, combination, and arrangement of parts as claimed.

In the drawing- Fig'. 1 is a front viewof my feeding tower.

Fig. 2 is a side view of the feeding tower.

E Fig. 3 is an enlarged sectional view taken along the plane of the-line 3-3 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a sectional View taken along the plane of the line 44 of Fig. 2. I

Fig. 5 is aside view of the tower stand or bearing. 6

Fig. 6 is an end View thereof, parts being broken away to expedite the showing. Fig. 7 is a fragmentary view of the front of a modification of'my tower.

. Fig. 8 is'a side view of Fig- 7. Like numerals refer to like parts throughout the several views. Referring to Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4, numeral IB' indicates a back plate which is curved at II and extended downwardly at I 2.

:A cross supporting bar l3, see Fig. 2, may be attached to the back of the back plate as by welding at I4. This bar extends well beyond the sides of the back plate and aids in mounting or carrying the same.

Partitions or sides I5 have their bottom edges curved to fit the upper face of the back plate and may be attached thereto or made as one therewith, these partitions being parallelly positioned and the end ones serving as the ends of the tower. The upper portions of these partitions l5, beginning at or near their upper ends, and extending downwardly for a portion of their length, are cut away as at I6 and then gradually carried in a curved manner as at I! to their full height. The upper corners of the partitions I5 may be cut away as at l8. See Fig. 2.

The upper edges of the full height parts of the side bars l5 carry the strips rounded at their tops as at 2!. The end strips are cut away so as to not protrude beyond the end plates. As shown in Figs. 1 and 3, these strips form flanges which approach one another but leave spaces 22 therebetween, these openings permitting visual inspection of the cookies therebetween and also manual adjustment if the same be necessary.

As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, numeral 25 indicates the several cookies as positioned within the device. As shown in dotted lines, the cookies may be stacked to any desired position in the tower. And, as indicated in Fig. 1, the inner ducts may be first supplied with the cookies whereby inspection of the edges thereof, looldng for broken ones, is rendered very easy. As the cookies are removed one by one, the remainder gravitate downwardly around the bend and into the chute.

A supporting plate 26, carried by the side angle member 29 of the main frame, only one of these being shown, by means of the spacer block 28, welded in place at 30, extends across the machine under the tower. A sliding feeder plate 3 l, V-notched at 32, is attached at 33 to the bearings 3 2, one at each side of the machine. These bearings are reciprocated upon the shafts or rods 35 and thus the plate 3| removes one cooky from each of the several stacks. The belt 36 receives the cookies as they are pushed from the top of the plate 26.

Short supporting bars 40, right and left hand respectively, are attached to the end plates 15, in alinement with the previously mentioned bar 23, and aid in carrying the tower.

Each of the ends of the bars I3 and 40 are identically formed, having a slot 4| and a hole 42. As shown in Figs. 5 and 6 the holes 42 receive the arms of the crosshead 46. The arms are shouldered and the nuts 44 threaded upon the threads 43 of the arms push the bars l3 and 40 into a locked and rigid position with the crosshead.

The bearing or standard, shown in side view in Fig. 5, end view in Fig. 6, and in dotted lines in Fig. 1, has a base 50, sides 5| and a top bar 52. The base 55 may be attached, as by welding at 53, onto the side frame member 29. See Fig; 5. The sides are slotted at 55 to slidably receive the arms 45 of the crosshead. A stud 56, see Fig. 5, enters the slot 4| and aids in guiding and looking movement of the several parts.

A threaded rod 57, having a knurled operating nut 58, is revolvably mounted in the standard and receives the threaded opening 59 of the crosshead whereby rotation of the rod causes the crosshead to move up and down, as desired.

It will be apparent, with this construction, that the tower may be individually adjusted at either or both ends so as to be properly positioned above the abutment or receiving plate 26.

As shown in Figs. '7 and 8, numeral ID indicates the back plate which has parallel walls or sides H extending forwardly therefrom. The walls are extended forwardly as at (2 and have front flanges 13 attached as shown. Slots 14 extend upwardly as shown.

Without limiting myself to the particular embodiments of my invention illustrated and explained above, and desiring to protect my invention in the broadest manner legally possible, what I claim is:

1. In a cooky mechanism of. the class described, the combination of cooky supporting means consisting of a trough-like member having sides extending upwardly in spaced relationship so as to form an upwardly facing trough adapted to receive cookies, said trough slanting downwardly, a substantially vertically positioned portion for said trough and in alinement therewith, connecting means between the vertical portion and the trough and means connected onto the substantially vertically positioned portion of the trough for preventing lateral movement of the cookies from the said portion, said means extending upwardly and terminating at the bottom end of the upwardly facing trough.

2. A cooky mechanism as set forth in claim 1 in which the height of the sides of the trough-like member is approximately one half the width of the upwardly facing trough.

3. In a, cooky machine having a moving belt,

cooky feeding means thereabove, the combination of gravity means to deposit cookies on said feeding means, said gravity means comprising, a tubelike lower portion, an upper duct connected onto the lower tube and extending upwardly therefrom, said duct having a bottom positioned on an incline, sides thereon, said sides extending upwardly in parallelism and at right angles to the bottom thereof whereby said duct may receive circular cookies or rectangular cookies as desired, said duct having an open top of the same lateral dimension as the spacing of the sides thereof whereby a series of cookies having a combined height greater than the diameter thereof may be received therethrough.

4. A cooky machine as set forth in claim 3 in which the sides of the duct are of a height which is substantially equal to one half the width of the duct.

5. A cooky feeding tower comprising a vertical tube for receiving cookies within predetermined sizes, a feeding trough extending upwardly therefrom at an angle, said trough having a seat portion extending along its length to slidably receive cookies, the angle being 45 or less to cause the cookies to be primarily supported upon their edges, and non-overhanging wall means for preventing lateral movement of the cookies.

FRANK CHARLES WERNER. 

